Gerunds and Infinitives as Objects | All You Need to Know

hey everyone in this video i'm going to talk a little bit more about actually i'm going to talk a lot sorry about gerunds and infinitives why am i going to talk so much because jaren's infinitives are a lot they're a lot okay and even though the concept is pretty basic to understand when to use them it's not easy to know when to use them so hopefully you've watched my other video on subjects and objects with gerunds and infinitives within a sentence this video i'm going to expand on all that okay so let's start with reviewing what a gerund and an infinitive is okay so a gerund is just any verb plus ing okay and it represents an activity so it can be swim plus ing swimming run plus ing running swimming running writing talking reading these are all gerunds and they represent an activity therefore they're not a verb they're not a verb they're a noun they're an activity okay so there's a difference between saying running is my favorite sport and i am running right now you see the difference so here's what i'm talking about running just verb plus ing nothing else around it this is a gerund it's the subject of the sentence it represents an activity this is the verb is okay over here i am running am running is two parts the be verb plus run plus verb verb plus ing so here's the verb and the subject is i they're completely different even though they look the same so be careful with that okay next part i want to say is that gerunds they can be the subject of a sentence but they can also function as an object in a sentence so like this so in this sentence down here that i wrote you can see it says i enjoy running so the gerund now is way over here at the end of the sentence it comes in the object position of the sentence remember it's a noun right just like this is um and it's coming after a verb after verbs we can have nouns sometimes and in this case we do i enjoy running so this is the object of a sentence this is the object of the verb actually okay here we have the subject this is the subject of this sentence okay now objects can also come after prepositions in english so i look forward to running i want to talk all day about running okay and so those are when times when we would use a gerund as the object of a preposition and as the object of a verb okay now let's talk about infinitives so an infinitive looks like a verb as well it starts with the word to and then it ends with the base form of any verb okay so let's say again to run just to be simple to run we have the two plus the base form of the verb that's the infinitive form of a verb where can we put that well we can put that as the subject or the object within a sentence so let's see okay in these sentences here you see infinitives the first one is at the beginning of the sentence as a subject to run is fun this is the subject and here's the verb to run is fun here we're using it as the object after the verb wait okay i can't wait to run here it's as the object okay now let me say something about infinitives you can also use them after some nouns like time which we'll talk about later you can also use them after certain adjectives okay like i'm excited to learn about gerunds okay uh but something you should know is that when we use an infinitive in the subject position like here of a sentence it sounds a little uh strange it's not wrong it is totally grammatically correct but people don't use this form when they're talking or even when they're writing that much instead people will use the gerund form of a verb okay as the subject of the sentence so instead of using the infinitive form as the subject we would say running is fun or you can change around that sentence and say it like this with keeping the infinitive it you start with the word it and then you say what the verb it is fun and then to run and then you put the infinitive here's the infinitive at the end what does this it mean what is that the it actually is this activity it is this infinitive and this is a much more common way to express this idea if you want to use the infinitive in the subject position consider changing it to a gerund or adding the word it and moving the infinitive to the end okay so that's all i want to say about gerunds and infinitives on a basic level i think that basic information is something you can grasp like that or maybe with a little bit of studying what's hard about gerunds and infinitives is even though you might understand this and you can take a test and get a great grade on this understanding the hard part is actually using a gerund and an infinitive at the right time and i'm going to talk about why right now okay so now is the hard part this is where we start talking about hold on wait okay now is the hard part this is where we start talking about all those little details about when to use a gerund and when to use an infinitive in the object position within a sentence so here goes i'm going to share with you what i use with my class okay and it's this chart that shows okay here in the heading in the at the top of each of the chart you see verb plus infinitive so it's telling you what verbs take an infinitive after them so for example he agreed here's the verb to meet there's the infinitive me he agreed to meet me okay so what verbs will take an infinitive like this because you can't just throw an infinitive after any verb in english i can't say i enjoy to run it's wrong enjoy is a verb that cannot have the word to run or any infinitive after it because it's just not grammatical so therefore now you have to go okay i know i can use infinitive as the object after a verb but which verbs which verbs take infinitives after them here's that list so agree for example i agree to meet you it appears to be late let's arrange to meet tomorrow i'm going to ask to help someone right let's attempt to call her okay i care to help you out taking bagel okay choose i choose to wait okay so i'm not going to go through the whole list but you can get an idea here that here's a list of verbs that might be good to know for you in starting to know when to use an infinitive after a verb and when to not and in these ver these verbs you can use infinitives after them okay and there's more there's more this is not all of them this is the hard part about gerunds and infinitives so let's look at the next chart the next chart is a list of verbs that take a noun or a pronoun which is a word like it me you he she then the infinitive okay so for example like this sentence i don't want you to go now i don't want wants the verb you that's the noun or the pronoun to go that's the infinitive okay so if you're not sure about when you know if you can use an infinitive after want you know and then you're talking about wanting someone else to do something or know something then you need to know these are the verbs that you use plus the noun or a pronoun and then an infinitive so let me give you some more examples i advise all my students to read that's a good way to learn gerunds and infinitives the police officer allowed the the driver to go away without a ticket ask i need to ask you to help me okay assign the teacher assigned us to write an essay okay authorize all of the the whole list authorize call cause challenge all of these verbs will take a noun or a pronoun than the infinitive form what you can't do is you can't say i you can't use one of these verbs for example and say i encourage you studying hard you cannot say i encourage you studying hard it doesn't work because encourage is a verb that requires first a noun or a pro a pronoun i encourage you i encourage you and then the infinitive i encourage you to study hard i encourage you to read i encourage everyone to read that's how you're going to learn this stuff the best way okay it's also not okay to say i encourage to read so most of these verbs you need to have that noun you can't just say i challenge to study hard you have to say i challenge you to study hard i convinced him to help me you can't say i convinced to help me it has to have a noun or pronoun before that infinitive so look at this list and kind of familiarize yourself with it so that you can notice an error when you are talking or writing okay which you will make you will make errors and that's totally a normal okay um but then but then you you know where to go to find more information so the next list there's a lot is when to use um a noun plus an infinitive so infinitives can be used after certain nouns for example it is not time to see the movie yet time is the noun to see is the infinitive okay so it's not time to go it's your chance to help i'm going to attempt to call you i have a decision to make um there is a strong desire to take a break right now my goal um or i have a goal to graduate before i turn you know 20 or 30 or whatever your age okay these nouns take infinitives after them okay and there's more there's more but this is just a list to start with okay the next list is adjectives plus infinitive so you can use an infinitive after an adjective okay i'm excited excited that's the adjective to see you that's the infinitive i'm amazed to see your work i'm afraid to go i'm anxious to call i'm always careful to check my errors i'm eager to go back to school i'm glad to meet you i'm lucky to know this information so these are just these are just adjectives that we often use with an infinitive after them all right we're moving along the next one is a list for verbs that take a gerund so i want to stop for a second here and point out that so far we have looked at four columns of times where we will use an infinitive after something so to review we use an infinitive after certain verbs not all verbs we use an infinitive after certain verbs plus a noun and a pronoun like in the second column we use infinitives after certain nouns okay we can also use infinitives after adjectives okay so in the next part of this list i'm focusing on gerund so what when do we use a gerund in the object position we can use it after verbs but you can't use gerunds after all verbs i can't say i want studying i cannot say that i want to study you need an infinitive but i can say i admit studying is hard i advise studying hard i appreciate working hard i avoid staying up too late right so these are this is a list of um this is a list of verbs that take gerunds so just like in the example children enjoy learning enjoy is a verb that takes adjourn okay so you can study this list here and look at it as well okay the next list is when we use a verb plus a gerund or an infinitive isn't that great okay it's just not easy right it's harder and harder but certain verbs can take a gerund and they can take an infinitive well okay it would be nice if they were all like that but they're not okay so we can look at the examples here we continued making plans or we continued to make plans both of those have completely the same meaning they're completely fine okay i can afford to travel or i can afford traveling those are both okay i attempt to help you i attempt helping you let's begin to meet let's begin meeting see these have the same meaning even though it's a gerund or an infinitive after these verbs and that's okay but how do you know that how do you know when to use one or the other when all the other times we know that you have to be really careful it's hard to know that it's really hard to know that but i always recommend reading and talking to people so you can take a look at this list but i'm going to highlight the the word forget and i'm also going to hide oh there's this already a star next to it okay uh the word forget and the word um stop and remember okay in in these cases they actually you can use both a gerund or an infinitive after them uh but the meaning changes okay so let's start with the work with the example with stop okay okay so let's take a look at this example they stopped to eat so there's the verb stop and after it here we have an infinitive they stopped eating here we have a gerund they're both correct but the meaning changes completely depending on whether you use an infinitive or a gerund so what does it mean to use an infinitive after the word stop it means that you stopped something else some other activity in order to eat okay so it's like they were driving they stopped driving to eat and then later they continued to drive right or maybe they were talking they stopped talking you can add that there if you want they stopped talking to eat in order to eat that was the reason okay here if we use a gerund after stop it means that you quit some activity you completely quit this thing now is that what you want to say they stopped eating if someone stops eating they'll starve they're not going to have food they quit eating that's not good right unless maybe you're saying that this they quit eating for that meal only okay so it depends on what you want to say they stopped smoking that means they quit they stopped yelling at each other that means they quit yelling okay so that's the difference with the word stop when you use a gerund or an infinitive let's talk about remember okay here we have some more examples we have remembered to call and remembered calling okay so what's the difference well they're both correct okay but if you say he remembered to call that just means that he remembered something that he needed to do some obligation that he had and he remembered that obligation he remembered to call okay that's a good thing he remembered calling this just means that he remember the activity of calling okay he remembers what he said he remembers who he was talking to he remembers all the details okay he remembers the activity now the same thing is with the word forget okay you can say he for got to call that means he had an obligation that he forgot about you can also say he forgot calling he forgot the activity of calling it means he called he called someone and they had a conversation but he forgot that conversation he forgot that activity okay so you can remember to do your work you have an obligation to do work you remember to do your work that's a good thing if you did your work and it's finished then you probably remember doing your work the activity the process but if you forget to do your work that's not good because you had an obligation to do something and you forgot but if you've just forgot doing it that's not so bad because you did the activity you just forgot about it you forgot what that was like to do i'm sure we all have things that we did in our past that we don't remember doing i forgot sitting in class when i was young i forgot the feeling of sitting in class when i was young i forgot talking to my uh mom on the phone when i was 15 years old i'm sure i did it a lot but i don't remember that activity okay so when we use it as a gerund we're talking about an activity when we're using it as an infinitive with forget and remember we're talking about it as an obligation okay okay and that is what i want to say about forget and remember but let's not forget we have plenty of verbs that can take a gerund or an infinitive after them and they are here okay there's plenty more you know this is just a short list but something you can start with now the easiest thing in my opinion is to remember that gerunds also come as objects of prepositions that means that they come after a preposition so words like to on about over in from at look at the example here i look forward to two is the preposition seeing you that's the gerund okay so here's the list i give my students so they can't get an idea and categorize and classify all these different times when they can and cannot use a gerund or an infinitive in the object position but down here i also tell them it's important to sort of understand or remember or see at least see that there are combinations that go together a lot um that often will result in a gerund afterwards because they end in a preposition like this one look forward to it's the verb look forward plus the preposition to look forward to be afraid of i'm afraid of taking tests be excited about i'm excited about taking a break insist on i insist on helping you be interested in i'm interested in learning more about this idea we're down here we have adjectives and prepositions that often go together that result in a gerund following them so accustomed to i'm accustomed to helping my students with their grammar amaze that i'm amazed at seeing your growth anxious about i'm anxious about taking my test next week okay so here's a list another list that is helpful too kind of be aware of but with all this stuff it's just too much to memorize i don't recommend memorizing anything i just met i just recommend being aware of these categories and these rules because then when you're trying to use the language you will attempt to follow these rules and you will also break them and make mistakes which is totally normal and expected but because you know these rules you might have a little idea that you made a mistake and that's good it's called monitoring you're monitoring your speech and when you feel that something's wrong you can go back and reference this list and check to see if you were right or wrong now you won't be able to do that all the time but maybe you will sometimes and what i do recommend is talking to people in english and reading in english that's what i always recommend then you will certainly see these forms and they will come to you automatically but it will take time it will take years but at least by looking at this you have an idea of what is happening so you can start to use these forms yourself okay so that is the end of this video and i hope that it was helpful bye

Channel: Breaking English

Views: 10,235

Keywords: gerunds and infinitives, gerund and infinitive, gerund or infinitive, gerund verb, infinitive verb, how to use gerunds and infinitives, learning english, gerund and infinitive grammar, advanced grammar lessons english, advanced grammar english, college english class, english for esl students, grammar for esl students, gerunds and infinitives as objects, objects in grammar, english as a second language lesson, gerunds and infinitives as direct objects, verb patterns

Id: d7XtHT_NZnY

Length: 27min 5sec (1625 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020